Faced with a similar situation as we are currently experiencing in our last golden season, 2023/24 Madrid jettisoned the classical or traditional 4-3-3 formation for the 4-4-2 diamond format .
And it paid us handsomely well as we claimed a major double; La Liga and UCL at the end of the season.
Then, as at is now, there was a lot of concerns about injuries to key players and in addition we were bereft of a natural striker after the great Karim Benzema bowed out of European soccer challenge for Saudi oil money.
After the glorious 2023/24 season, Madrid acquired the services of a Galactico and France World cup superstar, Kylian Mbappe to further strengthen the squad.
One can never have enough of superstars in a club, if one could remember the famous 1970 Brazilian world squad which was a collection of superstars; Felix; Carlos Alberto, Everaldo; Clodoaldo, Gerson; Jairzinho, Pele, Rivellino; Tostao etc that still remains the best football squad in living memory.
So there was nothing wrong in the recruitment of Mbappe then, and now.
Though, as expected he (Mbappe) had a slow start but he is beginning to live up to expectations as a truly talented superstar.
As a result of the arrival of Mbappe, it seemed the coach for reasons best known to him jettisoned the diamond format for the classical formation.
In my own opinion, the coach needs to revert back to the diamond format which plays to the strength of players at his disposal as it has now proven to be a winning formula for Madrid in comparison to the classical formation.
In addition to using the diamond format the coach must also do the following;
– find an ingenious way to integrate Mbappe into the format along with his preferred players in the final third
– urgently address the problems of the RB and LB positions which are the archille heels of Madrid presently from January transfer window
– avoid playing players out of (their natural) position e.g. Aurelien Tchoumeni and Federico Valverd, Lucas Vasquez which was our weak link at the last Riyadh El Clasico
– adopt rotation to refreshen the players while giving more opportunities to the Madrid Castila players such as the rising star Raúl Asencio, that reminds me of Sergio Ramos.
For a coach with the experience and stature of Carlo Ancelloti there nothing new in my humble suggestions as enumerated.
But, one thing he shouldn’t forget to effect, as he plans to correct the recent mistakes is to revert back to the diamond formation.
After all the Man City which he prevailed over on two occasions to lift the UCL in the last three seasons would make mince meat of the current Barca team.
This feat was invariably achieved with the diamond formation.